Having decided to host a takoyaki party, Rest immediately set about gathering ingredients.
Fortunately, he knew how to make takoyaki. He'd made it before, in his past life.
Of course, Rest had never been blessed with the kind of wholesome family that would hold takoyaki parties at home. The only experience he had was making and selling them at the academy festival.
"The ingredients are octopus, flour, dashi… and beni shoga, I suppose, but that's probably going to be impossible to find."
After rounding up every ingredient he could get his hands on, Rest faced the iron griddle and psyching himself up with a firm "Alright!"
Even if he had the octopus and the rest of the ingredients, there was one thing he absolutely needed to make takoyaki.
That was a takoyaki pan — in other words, an iron plate with round indentations.
This was the one thing that wouldn't be easy to come by. Technically, it wasn't that difficult to make; a skilled blacksmith could probably finish one in a few days.
(But… I want to hold a takoyaki party right now. I want to eat takoyaki immediately!)
Yakisoba, okonomiyaki, and takoyaki.
Why was it that flour-based dishes with savory sauce were so irresistibly appealing?
Once the craving struck, there was no holding it back.
"First, I'll need a large iron griddle. Then… reshape this thing to create indentations for cooking takoyaki."
He'd gotten the iron griddle from the cooking supplies. It was one the queen dowager had used — apparently, she would grill seafood on it by the seaside.
Shaking his head at Sanada Shoko for having enjoyed her twilight years in such indulgence, Rest began channeling his mana in front of the iron griddle.
And then… with the same sensation as always, he cast his fire magic.
"[Fireball]"
What he produced was a ball of flame. He layered on a [Compression] spell to shrink it down, reducing it to roughly the size of a takoyaki ball.
"Now, let's get this hot…"
He brought the fireball he'd created close to the iron plate.
The iron plate gradually heated up, but... no matter how he looked at it, this alone wouldn't change its shape.
"Metal changes shape when heated. The problem is the temperature..."
Rest had no experience with metalworking either.
There was no way he'd know what temperature was ideal for shaping an iron plate.
So that meant... trial and error was what he needed. Gradually increasing the heat of the fireball.
"Oh? The color changed."
As he raised the temperature, the iron plate's color shifted, turning white.
He didn't rush to crank the temperature even higher from here.
If he added too much heat, it would melt. He had to go slow, carefully.
"It's hot... Thank goodness I'm near the sea."
Fortunately, a cool breeze blew in from right by the shore.
Thanks to that, the iron plate was close to cooling down, but Rest also avoided getting heatstroke.
"It's getting to be a pretty good state, I think? The problem is what comes next, though..."
He'd thought that if he heated it to the takoyaki mold's temperature, the iron plate would take on a similar shape... but it didn't work out that easily.
The iron plate seemed to have reached white heat and become soft, but it wasn't taking the shape of the takoyaki mold.
"It's fine... This is within expectations. Essentially, I just need to hammer the iron plate while it's in this state."
If he applied strong external force to the iron plate while it was softened, its shape should change.
Of course, he wasn't going to punch it bare-handed. He used magic to manipulate the wind.
"["[Wind Manipulation] He struck the iron plate with wind. Just as he'd expected, its shape changed.
But it didn't take the takoyaki mold shape like he'd imagined. The iron plate just bent.
"Oh... this is harder than I thought. If I narrow the range of the wind a bit more... huh?"
He struck it with wind once more, but... as expected, he couldn't form a proper indentation.
"Well, what if I strike it from the other side... whoa, it turned into a weird shape!?"
He'd thought this would be easy, but... the iron plate wouldn't come close to the shape he had in mind, and Rest struggled through one difficulty after another.
After that, he kept alternating between heating and striking, and by the time evening rolled around, he finally succeeded in shaping the iron plate.
What his experience today had taught him was that craftsmen truly are remarkable.
He had been made painfully aware of just how extraordinary a blacksmith—one who could freely work metal—truly was.